2012 US Retail Rankings: Walmart No. 1, Amazon No. 15

The annual rankings reflect a complex and volatile retail industry, with the largest retailers (from No. 1 Wal-Mart to No. 27 Metro) scaling back on the size of their new stores, while others (notably No. 28 Dollar General and No. 48 Menards) are opening larger stores.

(Source: American stores website, translated by: China Chain Store & Franchise Association)

Among drug chains, Walgreens ranked 4th and CVS Health ranked 7th continue to expand the categories of food products they offer; while Kroger ranked 2nd and Whole Foods ranked 37th among supermarkets are vigorously launching health and nutrition products. Target ranked 3rd has no traditional business related to electronic products, but it is selling Apple's tablets hot; Dollar Tree ranked 60th has added prescription counters in some stores. There seems to be a trend of mixed and mixed business in these retail giants, and the categories of goods penetrate each other.

The actual strategies adopted by merchants are as diverse as their business operation models: urban planning vs. suburban planning; shopping malls vs. affiliated commercial facilities; physical stores vs. e-commerce and mobile commerce; grasping the domestic market in the United States vs. targeting overseas markets.

Amazon's business model was bold and innovative and difficult to imitate when it first came out. It was bold because the profits generated by its operations did not directly belong to senior management and shareholders; it was difficult to imitate because it was unique in its ability to define and control the entire retail channel.

Amazon has established an unshakable position as an empire state in the online sales channel, just as Wal-Mart has established itself as the world's largest physical retailer. Wal-Mart has become a leader in the retail industry with its expertise in logistics and distribution and its everyday low-price pricing strategy. Although Amazon is not good at expressing its advantages in marketing, it can make customers remember the low prices of its products sold on the Internet. In order to achieve low-price sales, Amazon does have many advantages over physical stores, and the management costs related to buildings, inventory, employees and maintenance are relatively low. Amazon also sells Apple tablets on its website at a price close to cost, and sometimes loses money due to the pickyness of loyal customers when it can slightly make up for the shipping costs, but Amazon does this to keep customers shopping on its website frequently.

During the last seasonal shopping season, Amazon launched a “showrooming” marketing mix that encouraged consumers to use its price-checking smartphone devices to search for gift certificates in stores and then buy them online at below cost, with a 5% discount as an incentive.

Amazon founder Jeffrey Bezos is in charge of the marketing push. In the shareholder equity statement for the company's first public offering of utility stock 15 years ago, he had a big dream to fulfill. He focused the company's efforts on expanding market share. "We believe that the measure of Amazon's success will be the creation of shareholder value over the long term, which requires our ability to expand our business and consolidate our existing market leadership."

Kantar Retail, a retail consulting firm, predicts that Amazon's sales will reach $81 billion in the next five years. Anne Zborsky, director of its retail insights department, believes that Amazon has expanded the range of its retail portfolio and sold it at a low price, which is very similar to what Walmart did in the past. She expects Walmart's sales to increase by about $600 million in the next five years (annual growth rate of about 3%), and Amazon's annual growth rate will not weaken at all. She believes that retailers who use physical stores for sales should be aware of the general trend of e-commerce and mobile commerce, rather than Amazon leading the technology trend.

The top retailers don’t have the same all-around competitive advantage as Wal-Mart, but they do have a dominant position in their respective categories. Toys “R” Us was the first hypermarket to sell a narrow but wide variety of children’s products. Its competitors were not other toy retailers, but general merchandise retailers such as Wal-Mart and Costco. Ten years ago, Toys “R” Us ran into difficulties in its daily operations, and venture capitalists subsequently took control of its shares and injected new capital into the company’s continued development through a public listing.

Following Toys "R" Us, the United States Army and Air Force Allied Services (AAFES) is a company with a history of more than 100 years that has been responsible for purchasing for the US military. It is well-known for its strict bidding procedures. The purchased products need to pass two screenings: product quality and merchant reputation. The logistics system of the product supplier in the United States and the quality of after-sales service are investigated. Only after passing the almost demanding evaluation standards of AAFES can the real bidding process be entered. In the United States, there is an unwritten rule that whoever can pass the standard inspection of AAFES must have excellent product quality and can be purchased with confidence. At present, in addition to operating daily necessities, it is also involved in gas station businesses and actively entering the field of e-commerce, and has business expansion in the United States and overseas (including war zones).